Fascism: Are We There Yet?

While I am as fed up with government overreach as anyone, when a pundit or blogger asks such a question, I have in the past generally shrugged it off as hyperbole that isn’t necessarily helpful to the conversation. However, increasingly there are some eerie parallels.

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary and Concise Encyclopedia define fascism as “a way of organizing a society in which a government ruled by a dictator controls the lives of the people and in which people are not allowed to disagree with the government,” where the government “stresses the primacy and glory of the state, unquestioning obedience to its leader, subordination of the individual will to the state’s authority, and harsh suppression of dissent.” So what do we see?

We have a President who repeatedly tells us he will impose his own agenda if Congress does not give him what he wants. Whether energy policy, climate and carbon emissions, immigration enforcement, court nominations, Libya, gun control, or the budget (this is a partial list), he often makes good on these threats through the use of executive orders, regulations, and “guidance” issued through the many agencies of the Executive Branch. Furthermore, his cabinet selectively implements and even suspends the law to fit their agenda. This is in spite of Article I of the U.S. Constitution giving the authority to make law to Congress, and Article II, requiring the President to uphold the law (Faithful Execution Clause).

The 1st and 4th Amendments are being ignored. Average Americans have been labeled “rightwing extremists” by this administration, and the apparatus of government surveillance and counter-terrorism has been turned inward on its citizens. We continue to see political speech targeted by the IRS using audits, intrusive questioning, denials of tax-exempt status, and the imposition of onerous requirements, successfully influencing elections. Not only that, but with the Department of Homeland Security and local police agencies arming up, citizens are feeling more intimidated and alarmed. One has to wonder if our politicians have given up on fixing things, and are now just planning to manage the chaos.

VIDEO: Shotguns, Flying Saucers, and the NSA

There has been a huge push to disarm Americans. The trampling on the 2nd Amendment continues in spite of the fact that bad guys ignore the laws, and municipalities with the toughest gun laws and restrictions tend to have the highest crime rates. Given that this is a precursor (in fact, a requirement) for total centralized government control, these efforts are raising more eyebrows. The recent signing of the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty, and the confiscation of rifles and shotguns in New York, do little to ease concerns.

VIDEO: Gun Control WORKS

The government is tightening its control over businesses and the markets. While with socialism, the government owns the means of production, fascism does this with a twist – the central authority controls the individuals who produce. Using stifling regulations to punish some (driving costs upward, putting whole industries out of business), and targeted subsidies to reward others (one third of the nation’s richest CEO’s now are given money by the government), Washington is taking over our economy. They use grants, bailouts, and easy money to fund pet projects and funnel money to allies and donors, including those on Wall Street. They have no qualms about violating contract law as they arrange for takeovers instead of orderly bankruptcies (paying off unions while shorting investors).

“CAPITALISM IS BAD. . .VERY BAD!”

Don’t be fooled. Politicians have long railed against the “greedy capitalists” and attacked our system of free trade. They have been replacing it with “crony capitalism” where they, instead of consumers, get to chose winners and losers. As a result, big business has realized the key to success is no longer necessarily dependent on providing quality affordable products and services, but on having connections. This may be why there is such a big push for immigration reform right now – not only does it increase access to cheap labor, but low-skilled workers tend to vote for more government after they have become accustomed to handouts.

Ironically, after their bureaucratic meddling has resulted in the devastation of our economy, led to broken families, and ruined countless lives, they blame it on capitalism and too much freedom – and of course their solution is more government.

Witness their recent pivot to income inequality and their willingness to use and push for price and wage controls. They will not admit that government makes doing business more expensive and limits market choices and competition. They also want us to believe that they are immune to economic realities, refusing to operate within a budget since they can raise our taxes and print more money.

Yet their “good intentions” are destroying the nation’s wealth. Soon they will bankrupt the private health insurance industry and will assume total control of our health care, making us the “property” of the government. Our Founding Fathers (as well as our fathers and grandfathers who fought against fascism in WWII), must be turning over in their graves.

ARTICLE V UPDATE

The federal government is clearly broken. The Constitution isn’t being adhered to. Not only that, but the Founders never intended for it to be run by academics, social engineers, and career politicians.

The good news is that more and more people are learning about the remedy given us in Article V to rein in federal government overreach. State legislators in particular are starting to realize the power they have and the important role they will play in restoring the Constitution and the balance of shared power between the federal government and the states.

This columnist confidently predicts that Sen. Long’s breakthrough legislation, or legislation directly inspired by it, will ramify widely throughout the several states during the 2014 and 2015 legislative sessions. Then, by 2016, the matter of which amendment or amendments should be considered will be in order. It is premature to consider these now. Perhaps forthcoming will be amendments constraining Washington’s onerous taxing, profligate spending, and unjustifiable printing-press-money (a pernicious thing debated in and withheld from the federal government by the Constitutional Convention) powers.

If so the big political news of 2016 will not be about the presidential race. It will be about how nearly 100 citizen-legislators began a process that restored liberty to America. The big story is bigger than presidential politics.

“The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the state governments are numerous and indefinite,” [James Madison] wrote in Federalist Paper 45, part of a broad argument for ratifying the Constitution. Those words, Upmeyer said, support ALEC’s belief that “people are better served by local leaders.”

Yesterday, approximately 100 state legislators from over 30 states met at George Washington’s home in Mount Vernon, VA. The meeting’s purpose was to begin drafting the procedural rules for a Convention of States. We are beginning to reach critical mass in our efforts to use Article V of the Constitution to rein in the power of the federal government. The Mount Vernon Assembly is one of the major steps in that effort.

In filing the legislation, Senator Hays continued, “In their wisdom, our Founders knew the Federal Government might one day become too large and too powerful, so they specifically inserted a mechanism that gives states a lawful and orderly instrument to restrain a runaway federal government; it’s Article V, Section 2 of the Constitution.” So far, Florida, Virginia, and South Carolina have officially pre-filed our application in their state legislature. We have many more representatives interested in sponsoring our application, so be looking for your state as we announce more pre-filings in the next few weeks!

Senator Cruz addresses the repeal of the 17th Amendment, which would allow state legislators to select senators, restoring a major component of the states’ check on federal power. He also proposed “a strong balanced budget amendment.”